


keep my head from going under

by Aimz777



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/M, First Kiss, Force Bond (Star Wars), Heartbreak, Hopeful Ending, Lightsaber Battles, Minor Violence, TROS trailer spoilers, force bonds with a difference, this whole fic is basically an excuse to have them kiss during the rainstorm lightsaber duel...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 01:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20462894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aimz777/pseuds/Aimz777
Summary: "Enough," he bellows, going on the attack and with two quick, brutal strikes, the legacy saber goes flying.She stands there, his equal; disarmed and defeated, and yet still as deadly dangerous as she had been a mere moment ago.  There is defiance in her eyes, and he loves her for that too.She would never beg.  Not his scavenger queen."Do it," she tells him, her eyes blazing and head held high.  "Do your worst."His worst.Okay.  If she insists…~*~AKA an excuse to write a Reylo first kiss during the rainstorm lightsaber duel...





	keep my head from going under

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LoveofEscapism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveofEscapism/gifts).

> -Based on the incredible song [Bruises ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84znrPmOePc)by Lewis Capaldi.
> 
> When I first received Rebecca's prompts, I was torn between the One Tree Hill prompt and this one. I went with OTH because I loved it. Then the TROS trailer came out and I just couldn't help myself and this is what came out.
> 
> It's super angsty and canon adjacent (_whaaa?!_) and by no means do I think any of this will actually happen... I mainly wanted an excuse to write a kiss in the rain scene (that part must happen or i will riot).
> 
> This fic deals with heartbreak, rejection and the pain that can come from that. If that can be triggering for you, please tread carefully. If you want something lighter, feel free to check out my other fic for this exchange - [Dare You to Move](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126593/chapters/47680192).
> 
> Anyway, here is a second fic for you, Becca! I was trying to get it done by your birthday, but didn't quite make it. I hope I did this amazing song justice <3

~*~

_Counting days, counting days_

_Since my love up and got lost on me_

_And every breath that I've been takin'_

_Since you left feels like a waste on me_

_There must be something in the water_

_'Cause everyday it's getting colder_

_And if only I could hold you_

_You'd keep my head from going under_

~*~

Kylo Ren returns from Crait with a hollow victory and a new throne.

As supreme leader of the first order, he is now the most powerful man in the galaxy. He has the universe at his feet, the ability to do anything he wants. Get anything he wants.

Well, almost anything.

She hadn’t come with him. The girl. So bright and brilliant and beautiful. He should have known she wasn't meant for him.

On the surface, he’d escaped unscathed, but on the inside he is bruised and bleeding and broken. 

She'd abandoned him. Rejected him.

After everything he’s done for her, it still hadn't been enough.

It does little good thinking about that now. She is his past, and the past must die. He needs to move on.

If he stops swimming, he'll sink.

So he pushes forward with his own agenda.

He will go on.

That evening, he sits on the throne of his slain master, usurps his title and puts the girl out of his mind.

~*~

Healing is a slow process.

He returns to training, schooling his muscles to be stronger than ever, to withstand anything.

One muscle never recovers.

Day after day, night after night; his heart aches.

It feels like it may never stop.

~*~

People’s opinion on the new supreme leader vary.

_Ambitious. Reckless. Revolutionary. Mad. _

The words get bandied around throughout the First Order and the masses. Never to his face, but the Force fills him in all the same.

He ignores them. After all, who are they to judge him? Mere peasants.

There’s only ever been one opinion that truly mattered.

The days tick by and their bond stays dormant – _not dead, surely not dead_ – and in moments of weakness he wonders if he will ever see her again. When he tries to picture her, the vision that plays behind his eyes is that last lingering look of disappointment. It makes him not want to think of her.

So he doesn’t.

He throws himself into his new role, determined to change things for the better. He spends his days instituting reforms to the order. Some are better received than others. Those close to Snoke resist the change; something he had anticipated, though it is no less frustrating.

But it keeps him busy. 

And so he treads water.

Day after day, he goes through the motions, determined to prove her wrong.

~*~

Following a gruelling training session, Kylo prepares for bed as he always has. He rids himself of his robes, visits the ‘fresher and climbs into bed with his holopad and a glass of liquor. It’s been a long day and he is mentally drained, so for the first time in forever…

He lets himself think of her.

His muscles ache from putting them through their paces and tonight more than ever he is tempted to abandon his unattended work correspondences and let his body sink into the soft mattress.

He persists however, apathetic but resigned to the role he’s chosen to play, and is making good progress until he feels it…

A disturbance in the Force.

A glitch; a spark he hasn’t felt for months.

The air sizzles and his spine tingles and-

There she is.

The scavenger girl.

_Rey._

His would-be queen.

They don’t breathe as they drink in the first fresh sight of each other. 

She’s changed, he notes, distracted. Her hair looks something like what it once did, way back when she didn’t know either of his names. It’s more severe now, though; pulled back tightly, not a hair out of place. Nothing like how it had been in the red room; the way it had cascaded, tendrils falling free, framing her sweet, fierce face.

She’s been training too. He can tell with just a quick rake of her body. It’s leaner. Stronger.

This is something he’d hoped for, secretly and fervently, every night since they’d parted. To see her again, to have the chance to replace that final image of her with something else. Something better.

He begins to wonder if that had been a mistake.

Because she is hardened to him, even more so than their last connection. He can tell that too. The look in her eye leaves nothing to doubt.

Her abhorrence is woefully apparent and once the wide-eyed shock dims, she looks quickly away and proceeds to pretend he's not there until the cord snaps and she disappears. 

He doesn’t sleep that night. Instead he stares at the spot now painfully empty and wonders; if the first cut is the deepest, then why does this hurt just as much.

~*~

It happens again.

A few days pass and the atmosphere vibrates and she's there before him once more. He's heading to his transport - walking down a crowded corridor - and just like that, he feels her.

Spinning around, his fears are realised. She's standing in her training garb, sweat glistening on her golden skin, holding the legacy lightsaber. 

His lightsaber. His legacy.

A legacy you rejected, a small voice in his head whispers.

She glares at him from across the hall, before turning her back to him and resuming her attack of thin air with more savagery than before. He can tell from the sound it's making that she’s actually hitting something - a training dummy presumably - but he has no way of knowing. He can never see her surroundings.

Just her.

He remembers chasing her Force projection down a corridor just like this one once.

Again and again the Force connects them, with increasing frequency.

He never knows when or where she might pop up next and he's never prepared when she does. The split second warning does little to brace his heart for the misery of seeing what he can never have, over and over again.

She never speaks, never gives even the slightest indication that she is aware of his presence beyond the initial shock of eye contact, and as time goes on, she seems to be able to curb even that.

_Why didn't you join me,_ he wants to ask every time he sees her. _Don't you understand? We could have had everything._

But she stays silent, so he does too, and the chasm in his chest deepens.

~*~

The supreme leader sits on his throne and wishes he was anywhere else.

He feels like he's drowning. And perhaps he is.

Perhaps he has been ever since she left him. Or before. Forever. It’s hard to know anymore.

He knows he shouldn’t think of her.

Except he does.

It’s pretty much all he does.

Seeing her again makes him think of his grandfather. Since he freed himself from Snoke’s clutches, he has invested a great deal of time into learning more about the man that sired his mother. Not just the Sith, but the Jedi before him. Anakin Skywalker.

Few know of him, and even fewer are willing to speak, but from the little he does hear, he learns there had been a woman. His grandmother. She had proved a temptation too great to resist. 

She had been his undoing, and he hers. That’s what they tell him, anyway. 

The queen and the slave; doomed to tragedy.

He wonders if the supreme leader and the scavenger will share the same fate.

His generals stand before him, but he can barely hear them. Their words are fuzzy, their plans unclear. His thoughts are elsewhere; with her and the Force and the life they should have had together.

The generals carry on. They speak to him, they speak to each other, but he speaks to no one. 

He is underwater. He can't breathe. They don't notice.

No one ever does.

No one ever has.

~*~

His training intensifies. 

It helps, he finds. Helps relieve his disappointments; his frustrations. The bond’s reawakening has shaken him, left him off-balance. But here in the sanctuary of his training room, he is in control.

His fiery blade moves like an extension of himself, bold and blazing; surging through the air, slicing the wind. It feels good.

He feels it coming like he always does; the connection. The atmosphere crackles, but it’s deeper somehow, more intense this time, and then the training room fades away…

Rey appears before him as always - her eyes fixed on the hunk of metal she’s fiddling with - but this is different. This is something else.

He is _somewhere_ else.

It should be a mystery, but it’s not. Kylo knows where he is.

"_What the_-"

The Falcon.

He is on the Falcon.

Horror strikes him square in the chest.

They’ve got him. But how? What kind of cosmic joke is this?

Rey jumps at his panicked outburst, but never looks up, seemingly determined to ignore him like she always does. But nothing else about this is normal. He isn't just seeing _her_; he sees _everything_. As if he is actually there. 

She is seated at the engineering station in the main hold and if she’s done this on purpose as a way to capture him, she has a funny way of showing it. No, she seems resolute in her plan to deny his very existence. 

Noise comes from his left – the cockpit – and a woman’s voice rings clear as day.

An all-too-familiar voice.

"Mom?"

Rey's neck snaps back around, her eyes flying to his, wide and terrified. She's just figured it out - what's different this time. 

In seconds, she has ignited her lightsaber - or, rather, _his_ lightsaber - the one left to him. She must have fixed it. She's good at that, apparently. Fixing things. 

_She couldn’t fix him, though. _

She wields it in a defensive stance, guarding the hallway to the cockpit and her meaning couldn't be clearer - if he wants to get to his mother, he'll have to go through her first.

Luckily for both of them, he has no intention of going anywhere.

The reason for her hostility clicks a beat too late. He's still holding his own saber. Fresh from his training, it buzzes with furious power in his hand, but she couldn't possibly know that.

He wants to say something, but the look on her face stops him, because once again, he is looking at the face of a girl who sees a monster. It rips a fresh hole in him, one that will surely eventually crust over and scar like all the others. How many more he can take, he's not sure.

He's always been misunderstood. As far as humans go, he is not very relatable. But he’d thought she had been different. 

She'd seen him. The real him. 

_Hadn't she?_

If she had done it once, she could do it again. He could make her see, make her understand.

But… no. It is not meant to be.

Time is up, their connection ends and her name lingers on his lips as the scavenger and the Falcon fade away.

~*~

It's another restless night as he lies in bed plagued by ‘what ifs’ and ‘what nows’ and ‘what fors’. He tosses and turns under the ebony silk sheets, soothingly cool against his bare skin. 

The air fizzes, and for a moment he thinks he's imagined it because his darkness seems undisturbed, but then there's a tug on the sheet and it pulls away from his chest, exposing his skin to the mild night air. He whips around to chase it...

And comes face to face with a sleeping scavenger. 

She looks so peaceful in sleep; so demure, so sweet. It's light years away from the looks she's given him lately. He knows he should appreciate the reprieve, but even now, part of him misses the fire.

Still, sleep affords him an opportunity he's only had once before; the chance to study her, uninterrupted, unhurried. It's a pleasure he cannot deny himself.

Greedy eyes roam her face, from those full lashes settled softly against high cheekbones, to the dusting of freckles down her button nose, and down further, to those plush pink lips of hers that are the gatekeepers for the galaxy's brightest smile.

He knows he should stop there - quit while he's ahead - but the temptation is too great, and so his eyes travel lower still. Down her long, graceful neck, over her décolletage to the top of her modest cleavage that disappears into a grey band. That's all that conceals her, all that keeps her from him; that band and her leggings. 

It is agony and ecstasy all at once.

His gaze returns to the safety of her face, so angelic in slumber. 

This feels so different to their old connections, when they were together but separate; near but so far. 

She’s not far now. She’s right there, next to him, in the soft, silvery stillness of midnight. He could reach out and touch her, if he chose to. If she wanted him to. 

It isn’t meant to be.

Her eyes blink open and for one precious, endless moment he can see every soft fleck of green and gold… 

But then, they shift. 

Sleepy wonder morphs into confused bewilderment and then… Horror. Outrage. It pierces his gut worse than any laser blast.

The Force steals her from him before she can scream, and for that he supposes he’s thankful.

~*~

He has a vision.

A snowy forest painted red with violence and in it, his scavenger queen, with dark robes and dead eyes and a scarlet saber like his. It’s afflicted with the same abomination – a sign of a cracked cyber crystal; a bleeding gone wrong. She isn’t meant for the darkness. Perhaps he isn’t either.

It’s _her_ vision, he realises. He sees it too, but through her eyes. And then he is with her; not in a blood soaked forest, but a lush green jungle.

She stands before him – his scavenger queen – as she always has. White and bright and very much alive. 

He has never felt more relieved. 

She swings around. Fire burns in her eyes once more and it only increases his want. Brandishing the legacy saber at him as if it has the power to vanquish her inner demons just as well.

"What did you see?"

Instead of answering immediately, he watches her, head tilted in curiosity.

His scavenger really is such an extraordinary little thing. Conceived by no-ones. Left in squalor. Raised with scum. 

Now his equal. 

The only one worthy.

Some must think her a fearsome thing to behold; the hardened exterior, the stubborn ferocity.

To him, she is everything. The only thing.

He’d tried to tell her so, that fateful day in the throne room. The day he lives to rue.

It had all come out wrong. A mess of words that jumbled what he meant and turned it into something else. 

It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past. 

Regret is futile.

“The same as you, I imagine.”

She doesn’t look impressed with his answer.

“How are you doing this?”

She never does ask the right questions.

“You give me too much credit. I’m as in the dark as you are.”

Perhaps that’s a poor choice of words, considering the situation. 

“It’s not real.” It sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than anyone. "I won't do it," she says, and he hears it in her voice; a tremor. "I won't be who you want me to be."

He takes a step towards her.

"And who's that?"

"Someone evil. Someone like you."

Another stab to the wound. 

It'll never heal. Not like this.

As the pain of her blow dulls and his sense return, he sees it for what it is and comes to a revelation. 

Her accusation isn’t true. 

Perhaps it had been once, many moons ago, when salt ground under the soles of his feet. But that was then, and this is now. As much as he’d once hoped for something different, he’s older and wiser today than he’s ever been and he knows one thing with utter certainty. 

He wouldn’t change her. Not for a galaxy. Not for anything.

He wants to tell her so. 

There isn’t time for that.

She runs at him, screaming, saber poised above her head. 

He ducks just in time, but she keeps coming. She has the advantage here – his only weapon is the wooden training staff he’d had in his hand before he’d been sucked into her reality. 

Kylo knows the training staff won’t fair well against a lightsaber. His best chance is to outrun her – which is tricky. His power in battle has always come from his strength, his brute force. She is the quicker of the pair; light and nimble, able to twist and bend and roll with ease.

He doesn’t last long.

A wild set of strikes sees light connect with wood and it’s all over. The training staff snaps, and just like that, she has him. Eyes filled with fury, he doesn't trust her to stop, so he does the last thing he ever thought he'd do...

He calls for the saber.

It flies out of her hand and into his. There’s no resistance anymore, not like on Starkiller. It feels good in his hand. Willing. Compliant. This weapon was meant for him and even now it feels like a part of him, a part of his history, a piece of his soul.

Somehow, it feels like a piece of _her_ now, too. Strange.

He has no need for it; he would never use it on her. Taking the saber is purely strategic, in that it keeps her from using it to slice him in two.

“I thought you knew me,” he says, fighting hard to keep the hurt from his words.

“So did I,” she replies, and for a moment she looks as sad and lost as he feels. Then she grits her teeth and calls her weapon back. It goes, flying to her, splitting the forest in two as it goes. She catches it, and once again she is deadly.

But she is too late. 

The Force sighs and ends the connection.

They are an utter disappointment. To the Force, and to themselves.

~*~

Days pass and the supreme leader sits on his stolen throne and contemplates the evolving bond.

He continues to delve into his grandfather’s legacy, but the more he looks, the more perplexed he becomes. It is a man they speak of; not a machine. His heroics are legendary, his bravery knowing no bounds. And he loved, they say. Loved deeply. 

Too deeply.

He’d lost his heart to the queen-turned-senator. Then he’d lost _her_, and his mind has followed.

It doesn’t even resemble the story Snoke had told.

Kylo looks for answers, but all he finds are more questions.

They play on repeat in his head until he is overcome with exhaustion.

The search for the resistance continues to prove unsuccessful and he doesn’t know whether to be angry or grateful.

~*~

He trains late into the night. The others know not to disturb him here. It is his sanctuary in the world he made for himself. A world he’s no longer sure he wants.

He trains with his saber this time. Deep into his routine, he has long shed his tunic and now he stands only in his pants and armbands, sweat glazing every inch of his skin from effort. 

Here in the solitude of his training room, his body works and his mind vents. He attacks the obstacles with a vengeance; channelling every drop of his anger and hurt and frustration into each devastating blow.

He doesn’t know what bothers him more; her lowly opinion of him or his inability to change it. He’d thought if he could see her face to face, he could make her understand… 

It hadn’t worked thus far.

As if hearing his thoughts, the Force presents him with another opportunity. Lights flicker and the room sparks and then she is with him in his training room.

She looks… softer than usual. Her hair is down, falling in soft waves around her shoulders and she has shed some layers. He thinks perhaps she is preparing for bed. Her eyes also lack their recent harshness. She watches him wearily, but not with barely concealed rage.

It gives him a stupid sliver of hope.

“Rey.”

Her name tumbles from his lips with a reverence he’s not sure she deserves. She has done nothing to reward his admiration lately.

She takes one of her pretty lips between her teeth and bites, her eyes drifting lower as she moves back a step. It only takes a moment to realise the root of her concern.

His lightsaber. It burns red in his hand. Ready for action.

He understands her fear. _He_ is the one with the weapon this time. The one in control. He could use it against her.

He won't. The time for that has passed. He is beyond it now.

He extinguishes his blade, hoping it will put her at ease. To his satisfaction, it seems to work.

“How is this possible?” she asks in a small voice, looking up at him in something akin to wonder.

“I have no idea.”

For a beat, she eyes him suspiciously. He doesn’t know why. 

He has never lied to her.

Perhaps she comes to the same conclusion, because her posture relaxes and she looks around the room, apparently assuaging her curiosity after deciding she is in no imminent danger. He is unfazed. There is nothing in here she cannot see. Nothing the resistance could use against him.

“But… Snoke,” she says, brow creased. “I thought he said he was responsible for… this.”

“Just another lie intended to manipulate, I presume.” 

Something he would never forgive him for.

“He was a real piece of work.”

Disdain floods her voice and he finds it strangely pleasing; their mutual hatred.

“He was.” She doesn’t know the half of it.

As the days since his former master’s demise increase, he begins to feel like himself again. The fog from Snoke’s influence has taken time to clear, but the longer he goes without that oppressive figure looming over him, the more he realises how great a sway he’d had.

“So… how does this work, then? Can I just see your surroundings now, or am I actually here?”

She’s asked a good question for once, one he has been pondering himself. The mechanics of their bond have always been unclear. Just another source of frustration to add to the pool.

“Hard to say,” he replies, moving about the room to return the equipment to its resting place. He doubts he’ll be training anymore tonight. “In all my reading, I’ve never heard of the Force being capable of physical teleportation of this magnitude.”

He can feel her watching him as he moves. Quick, furtive glances that are over before they’ve barely begun. He strains to reach something on the top shelf that’s taller than he is, flexing as he goes. 

From the corner of his eye, he sees her cheeks pinken and he bites back a grin.

When he turns back to her, she meets his eyes with a wide, somewhat vacant expression.

“Yeah. Right.”

Perhaps it’s the lateness of the hour, or the fact he has exhausted his body of anxiety with his sparring, or just the way she looks, so vulnerable in his world, so soft, so perfect.

It makes him walk towards her.

Maybe he’s asking too much. Maybe they’ve made enough ground tonight and he should just be satisfied that they have gone a whole conversation without her trying to kill him. Maybe he should be smart and quit while he’s ahead.

He never has been very smart.

Step by step, he lessens the gap between them. 

“It’d be good to know more,” he says, pushing his luck further. “About the parameters.” 

His scavenger queen has her back pressed against the wall, eyes wide like a cornered animal. 

This is what they do. 

She runs and he follows. He will follow her to the ends of every planet in the galaxy if he has to.

But there’s nowhere for her to run to here. She has to face him; face this. This thing they have.

“We could figure it out, together,” he continues, his eyes imploring. “Find answers together. What we can see. What we can do. What we can touch.”

She is so close, and he’s desperate to do it. To reach out and touch her. It’s only ever worked once before. He’d give anything to repeat it. 

And to his pleasure and astonishment, she doesn’t say no. She looks like she’s considering it. Like she’s tempted.

His sliver of hope widens.

But then…

“Supreme Leader,” Hux’s voice trills over his comm link. “I have a matter of great importance to discuss that won’t wait until morning.”

The beast in Kylo roars with rage at being interrupted, and he’d happily smash his comm link to pieces and throw Hux into the garbage disposal to restore the sanctity of their moment, but the mention of his title has done its damage. 

She shuts off from him, pulling away, and the Force does the rest before he can explain.

He stands alone in his training room and his wound stings worse than ever.

~*~

Kylo anxiously awaits their next meeting. Their last one felt like progress – even if only for a little while – and he is eager for an opportunity to repeat it. 

For once the Force smiles upon him.

A day later, the world snaps and he is back on the Falcon, this time in the crew quarters. Rey sits on the bed that was once occupied by his parents, her nose buried in an ancient tome. That is, until she senses him.

She straightens, hazel eyes snapping to his. 

“Supreme leader,” she says coldly by way of greeting before turning back to her book, resuming her appraisal with a renewed vigour and apparently intent on ignoring him. It’s not very inviting, but she’s also not waving her lightsaber at him, so he’ll take what he can get.

He can’t leave – it’s physically impossible - so while she is preoccupied he seizes the opportunity to look around and _kriff_…

He remembers it like it was yesterday. 

This piece of junk had practically been his home once. He’d even carved his name into the wall somewhere.

His curiosity burns, and so he searches for his brand along the beaten panels and- yes, sure enough, there it is. 

_B.Solo_

Proof of his former life. 

He reaches out to trace the etchings with gloved fingertips and gasps as he hits solid steel.

Tangibility. 

He’d been wondering if he would be able to touch her world. That’s one question answered. But he has more, and perhaps he can investigate another right now.

Spotting a stray piece of banding, he swipes it up and pockets it hastily.

A frustrated huff emanates from behind him.

“I'm sure this stupid book would have some answers, if I actually knew what it said.” 

She pushes it away in frustration, and curiosity hits him hard again. "Can you read?" he asks. With her upbringing, he isn’t sure.

The glare she bestows upon him informs him of his mistake.

"Of course I can read," she hisses. And then... "A little."

She bites her lip and he curses himself. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her. He brushes past it and turns his attention to the text she's referring to and his gut lurches as he realises what it is.

One of the ancient Jedi texts. His uncle had shown them to him long ago.

“Let me see.”

She doesn't want to, not initially, but she must think better of it because after a moment she slides it over so he can better see it.

He gets lost in the text; examining the symbols. They are uncomfortably familiar. It tugs at the tear in his soul.

“I felt them.”

Her words drag him back to the moment, and he finds her looking more wistful than he’s ever seen her. 

“That night. Your sheets… I felt them against my skin.” His heart lurches in his chest. Her cheeks blush as she adds, “they're much softer than mine.”

_They could have been yours_, he wants to say. _Still could be._ _Just say the word._

But he doesn't.

“Balance.” Her brow furrows in confusion, so he points at the text. “This symbol; it means balance. Balance within the Force. Balance within one's self.”

She looks up at him, beautiful eyes searching his for something.

“Are you-” She stops before trying again. “What do you want, Kylo?”

“You already know.”

“I don't.”

He gives her a long, measured look.

“Yes. You do.”

She always denies the truth. That’s the difference between them.

The ground shakes and her world falls away.

He is dragged back to the Finalizer before she can utter another word, and he mourns for what could have been.

In the safety of his chambers, he pulls out his prize.

It’s just a raggedy old piece of gauze. A meagre scrap. Probably offcuts from a wound she has bandaged. 

It's nothing; a meaningless piece of garbage.

He keeps it all the same.

~*~

He is losing control.

He should have known this would happen. The generals can see his disinterest. They perceive it as weakness. They’re circling.

Things keep happening. Things he hasn’t approved. Things he hasn’t even heard about. He reads about it on his holopad like the lowliest in his ranks. When he questions them, they deflect. Occasionally he gives in to his rage and crushes the nearest windpipe, but it’s a double edged saber. For every general he decimates, two more pop up in its place. 

They’re like a disease, an infection he let fester, and now it threatens to destroy him.

~*~

The planet Endor has nine moons. He had grown up hearing of his parents’ adventures on its forest moon, so he is no stranger to the place, but today he is on a different moon for a different purpose.

One of its moons is comprised almost entirely of water. Uninhabitable to land-dwellers, it is mainly populated by aquatic life. Recently, Kylo had heard tale it is also home to something else…

The remnants of a death star.

Sure enough, the rumours are true. 

He keeps the trip secret from his generals. He is here for a purpose. Searching for something that belonged to his grandfather. A ring he is said to have carried all his days, even after the mask had been forged.

A storm is raging as he makes planetfall and he just barely manages to land his TIE Silencer without injury. 

Amongst the claps of thunder and lightning, he senses it. Their connection opening.

His heart plummets when he sees her.

His scavenger queen appears, standing on the wreckage of the death star, ready for war.

She holds his lightsaber. The one from his former life. How strange life is. Once, long ago, it would have infuriated him, but now he sees the truth. 

It belongs to her. It _is_ hers. It always has been.

_Just like him._

She looks ready to end him with it.

He strides forward to meet her, reluctant yet resigned, and ignites his own lightsaber.

“_How could you_?” she howls over the wind and the rain, and as he gets closer he sees tears staining her cheeks. “I thought- I thought I knew you. I was wrong.”

He’s missing something. He knows that. But she’s done talking.

She wants to fight. 

If that’s what she wants, he’ll give it to her.

The heavens open as he storms across the debris towards her, but his journey is cut short when she runs at him, weapon ready to strike.

She is glorious. She is terrifying.

Their blades meet, kissing and hissing as his pushes hers away. 

It’s like second nature to them now. Duelling. Fighting each other. It’s like a form of foreplay. He knows her, knows her body, knows how she moves. It’s familiar. It’s passionate. He can almost enjoy it.

Almost.

Their lightsabers sizzle as they clash together, time after time, thrust after thrust. She attacks, he defends, but he pushes forward too, refusing to lose ground. He won’t run scared. That’s what she does. 

He isn’t afraid of the truth.

She swings forward, overreaching, and he seizes the opportunity, locking their sabers together so they can’t move.

“Stop this, Rey!”

The look she gives him is loathsome.

“You have the gall to ask that of me? After sending your forces to destroy us?”

He falters, and she exploits his moment of weakness, freeing her saber. A quick snap of her wrists and she slices a tear in his arm. The wound cauterises immediately, but it stings and he yelps at the pain.

Back on the defensive, he has to use every ounce of his mental faculties to stay one step out of her reach. She is dazzlingly ruthless; slashing through the air, unwilling to yield, determined to punish.

“What forces?” he asks when he regains enough of his senses.

“Your fleet of star destroyers,” she yells back, accompanied by another blow that he just barely blocks. “They’re on their way to us as we speak.”

He recoils in horror.

He had sanctioned no such attack. And yet according to her, it is already in motion. His rein on this rabid beast is slipping, or perhaps he never held the reins at all.

She keeps coming at him and he desperately tries to keep his head above water. All his mistakes seem to be converging into this very moment and it terrifies him.

“You do know me,” he screams desperately into the tempest. “I didn’t do this. I’d never hurt you.”

If he’d hoped his words would placate her, he is sorely mistaken. They have the opposite effect, and if anything they intensify her rage.

“_Liar!_”

She kicks him square in the chest and he stumbles backwards, just barely keeping his feet.

"Why didn't you come with me?" Her words are nearly drowned by the rain despite the fact she screams them. "We could have been together. We could have been _everything_."

She's desperate too, he realises suddenly. His Rey, his beautiful Rey, sounds just as desperate as he does.

"We still could," he shouts back hastily, even as he blocks another one of her crushing blows. "It isn't too late."

She keeps fighting him, despite everything he says. 

Won't she ever give up? It's one of the things he loves her for - her ‘never say die’ spirit - but it's hardly helpful now.

In a world where they walked together in the day and slept together at night, he wouldn’t mind - he’s never had a partner of his equal and if they were sparring for pleasure, he could do this forever. 

But they’re not. The stakes are high. His patience wears thin.

He can feel her slipping away.

"_Enough_," he bellows, going on the attack and with two quick, brutal strikes, the legacy saber goes flying. 

She stands there, his equal; disarmed and defeated, and yet still as deadly dangerous as she had been a mere moment ago. There is defiance in her eyes, and he loves her for that too.

She would never beg. Not his scavenger queen.

"Do it," she tells him, her eyes blazing and head held high. "Do your worst."

_His worst. _

Okay. If she insists…

He extinguishes his lightsaber without another moment's hesitation and throws it to the ground. The clang can't be heard over the drumming of the rain, and yet he can hear his own heart thumping away. And hers.

Two tortured hearts.

And then he is on her. She is in his arms, swept up in a way that he has dreamed of doing ever since he first laid eyes on her on Takodana, and he kisses her with as much passion as he can muster, hoping against hope that she won't push him away.

She doesn't.

No, mercifully, she does the opposite; pulling him closer, he mouth giving against his, letting him in and this is both healing and scarring all at once. How he'll ever come back from this, he doesn't know.

He's well and truly ruined now.

The rain continues to pelt down on them – cleansing and purifying – but they don’t notice. They are absorbed in one another. Completely. Eternally.

Only lack of oxygen can prompt them to break apart and when they do, the look of wonder on her face assaults his poor, fragile heart. As they gasp for air, she looks up at him with wide, shining eyes.

"_Ben_."

The way she says his name – her little gasp – it’s everything. It has the power to heal, to knit him back together.

But the Force is cruel, and time as well, and before he can kiss her again she slips through his fingers, into the ether.

He stands, battered and bruised and soaking wet; grasping nothing, hating everything. 

But that look in her eye, the way they'd shone with something bright and wild and intangible…

He retrieves the fallen lightsaber – the legacy saber, _her_ saber – and examines it. 

A Jedi needs her weapon. He will need to get it back to her. 

Ben pockets the saber and despite it all; he smiles.

Their story isn’t over.

There may be hope for them yet.

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> This is so different to what I usually write. I am a big lover of a clear happy ending, but this just felt like the perfect place to end it.
> 
> However, I would consider doing a second part to this if people really want a little extra happiness and closure (and perhaps smut 😉 ). Please let me know what you think in the comments, I'd really appreciate your feedback on this one :)
> 
> Also... have you guessed who I am yet??


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